That dream season Santa Anita was envisioning this winter after installing its new dirt main track and advertising a 25 percent increase in purses is off to less than a rip-roaring start.

The overall handle is down about 17 percent and field sizes, which were supposed to increase with the larger purses, are still ridiculously low.

To be fair, we’re only 12 days into a 76-day meet and hopefully the situation will improve, but that might be expecting too much when you examine the whole picture.

Why is handle down so much?

Depends on whom you ask.

The bad weather that has blanketed much of the country the past few weeks undoubtedly is a contributing factor, cutting into the out-of-state betting figures.

Another possible reason is an ongoing horse players’ boycott of California racing because of a new bill that increased the takeout on exotic bets as much as 3 percent and has many bettors keeping their wallets in their pockets.

“We don’t want to boycott,” said Roger Way, California representative of the Horseplayers Association of North America. “We don’t want to harm California racing permanently. We don’t want to harm the little guy who works at the track, or the tellers or anything.

“It’s the decision makers who we’re after, and they’re making wrong decisions and causing this game very much distress.”

The decision makers Way referred to are the members of the California Horse Racing Board and the Thoroughbred Owners of California.

Way said his group, which was formed in 2007 and has grown to about 1,800 members nationwide, has attempted to sit down many times with CHRB and TOC officials face to face to discuss their grievances but has been rebuffed at every corner.

“They basically don’t want horse players to organize,” Way said.

CHRB chairman Keith Brackpool did not want to be interviewed for this column when asked about Santa Anita’s declining handle, preferring to wait until he speaks with track officials about the problem.

Brackpool later issued the following statement in regard to a possible sit-down meeting with HANA: “The California Horse Racing Board appreciates input from HANA and other fans. In fact, the CHRB has an obligation to listen to the public at large. At the same time, we understand that at least one race track has met with HANA and will continue to do so. The CHRB encourages such dialogue.”

TOC executive vice president Guy Lamothe said in an e-mail that his group met with HANA officials as recently as October and would do so again.

“TOC is open to meeting with parties that would like to discuss positive-minded suggestions for the betterment of horse racing,” he said.

But that statement contradicts what HANA president Jeff Platt wrote in an e-mail.

“I do not know who they met with, but it certainly wasn’t anyone with authority to speak for HANA,” Platt said.

It was later learned TOC officials were part of a teleconference with three members of HANA in October, but it fell short of the face-to-face meeting Platt and others would like to have with the CHRB, TOC and Santa Anita management in unison.

According to Way and his HANA associates, the CHRB and TOC are what’s ailing California horse racing, which employs about 50,000 people statewide.

“They need to talk to somebody,” Way said. “I wish they’d talk to us, but they don’t want to recognize us because to them we’re from a different planet. We’re interested in the gaming portion of this and they’re not. They just think things will ride on forever, because how do you lose money at a race track? Well, they’re finding out how to do it.”

What needs to happen, and quickly, is the CHRB and TOC need to quit playing games, sit down and meet with Platt and other members of the organization’s board and try to find common ground for the good of an industry that is spiraling downward at an alarming rate.

Here’s some less-than-startling news – the sport would not survive without the horse owners, but the owners need to recognize there would be no horse racing without the bettors. It’s a two-way street, fellas.

The fact the TOC failed to mention HANA once in a two-page newsletter to members earlier this month might lead some to conclude the horseman’s group would like to see the watchdog for horse players go away.

“About 99 percent of (horsemen) are good people, but it’s the decision makers who are messing things up,” said long-time California horse player and industry activist Andy Asaro, who believes Brackpool and CHRB vice chairman David Israel should resign because of poor leadership.

Said Way: “The increase in purses hasn’t done a thing for us. How wrong can wrong be? And they keep doing it over and over again. Whenever (the horsemen) get in trouble, they want to raise purses (through legislation). Well, that’s good for them, but it’s bad for the game.”

In addition, according to Asaro, the TOC lobbied the legislature to change state law, making it impossible for California residents to obtain pari-mutuel rebates from the advance-deposit wagering companies like bettors in other states.

“What we need to do is sit down face to face, that’s what we want, and talk about this retention cap and find out why the hell they’re punishing California players in favor of everybody else in the nation,” Way said.